


And The Sky Didn’t Fall

by Ashling



Category: Parade's End - All Media Types
Genre: (If you ignore the fourth book like I do), As fluffy as Ford Madox Ford would allow, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25111975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Valentine Wannop, the morning after.
Relationships: Christopher Tietjens/Valentine Wannop
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Multifandom Drabble 2020





	And The Sky Didn’t Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mary_the_gardener](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_the_gardener/gifts).



He slept very heavily, the great grey bear, each breath long and shuddering a little so that Valentine wondered if he was having a nightmare, if she should wake him. Curious that she felt so much tenderness towards a lump in a bed with its face turned away, curious that she should want to protect a soldier, a killer most likely, though she hadn’t asked because it wouldn’t make a difference to her either way. Perhaps it should. Imagine living with a killer! Yet all across the country, millions of women would not have to imagine. And neither would she.

Outside the sun was still buttery and blinding, the boy selling papers still knobby and irritable, the pigeons still plump and unconcerned. The whole world unconcerned, and she in her print dress unable to stop wondering if it had wrinkles that showed who she was to the sun, the boy, the pigeons, the baker who wished her good morning as he sold her bread, which surely he wouldn’t say to a fallen woman. A glimpse in a milliner’s window reflected a blonde in navy trotting along with some parcels and a loaf on a Saturday, as good as a wife.

She opened the door to him thundering down the stairs, lumbering so unevenly that it would be amusing but for his fear. His sandy hair with its white patch was rumpled, his shirt was untucked, his pale eyes were wide. “I bought us bread,” she said, and it gave her a natural thrill to add  _ us  _ to bread, butter, cheese, which she held up before her like evidence in court. He mooned at her like a man staring through mist, ridiculous, darling, so she shut the door behind her; she knew he believed that Yorkshiremen couldn’t be seen to kiss.


End file.
